Quote:
Originally Posted by bingle
However, I hope you realize that computers are constantly making copies of the ebook - whether you ask them to or not. When you download an ebook, the copy resides on the server, then in the memory of various routers across the internet, then into your own RAM, then onto the hard drive...
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All of that leads to great philosophical discussion... but it is immaterial to the issue. The issue is whether those copies are obtained by someone else who did not pay for them. And if you supplied them, intentionally or not, you are guilty of copyright infringement (or forgery, or theft... hey, maybe we need a separate thread and poll on this distinction?).
Quote:
Originally Posted by bingle
To bring in an analogy from another thread - society has got a genie that will give us any piece of content we ask for, for free.
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Okay, we are
not in a world of genies giving us stuff for free. This is the real world, and like it or not, we have to look at this issue from a real-world perspective.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparrow
Didn't you ever tape songs off the radio onto cassette?
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Lots of us did. However, those copies were not comparable in quality to the original, due to the losses between radio and cassette recording. So they wouldn't be considered equal in worth to the originals.
Nor would the vast majority of us repackage those songs on copies of that cassette, and sell or give them away in public. Why? Because it is considered to be illegal.
Remember, the reason this is an issue is a matter of scale. In the past, if I made a copy of a song (or even an album), I was not likely to give that copy to more than 1-2 people, if any, and the record companies let it ride. But those who made dozens to hundreds of copies and tried to sell them on the street were arrested and fined or locked up.
Today, I can make a copy of a song, and it can be available worldwide to millions, if not billions, of people. Just like the street bootleggers, that is unacceptable to the music industry, because they stand to potentially lose millions, and so they understandably attack.